phone lookups

[John R T Brazier]

>> On Mon, 24 Jun 2002, John R T Brazier wrote:
>>
>> Yes, anyone could purchase the CD, and then proceed to use/abuse its
data.
>> However, I have not purchased the CD. Therefore I do not have a right to
>> use its data, and I shouldn't receive the data from the CD. The situation
>> seems to me to be analagous in terms of principle: agencies who have
>> a right to traffic data shouldn't "quote" its contents to agencies that
>> don't. In exactly the same way, people who have purchased the access to
>> Experian's mega-demographics databases shouldn't quote their contents to
>> people who haven't.


>Julian replied:
>Not strictly true - the names and addresses in the database do not
>'belong' to the creator of the database, and publishing small excerpts
>from the database would be excusable under fair dealing grounds, even if
>they did.

Really? I'm fairly sure that a European/UK law was passed a few years ago
that did make data collections subject to copyright (can't at the minute
remember its name, as I've just come in from a large lunch). The point of
the law was to make the data collection copyrightable due to the effort
made in compiling it, even though the data was publically available. The
logic of the law is that you can't use the data fromm that database
unless you have the right to it (although you can use the data if you get
it from another source). If I remember right. Lawyers?

However, to me, this isn't the core point. Let us take a ludicrously
extreme example (thought experiment). I take your name, address, phone
number,
all the details I can find "freely" available - and spread them to every
person on the planet. Would you be happy about this? I suspect not.
Given the percentile of serious loonies in the 6,000,000,000 plus
people around I would regard this as a serious invasion of my privacy.
But this would be a very small "excerpt" from the database. I've
noticed that most arguments around this topic tend to be top-down
("it's just a few names") rather than bottom-up ("it's ME being fingered").

<purple prose>
But, of course, that's just a thought experiment. Pragmatically, you're
right - who cares if a few more names and details get spread about,
and that privacy is eroded just a little more every time we do it?
</purple prose>

TTFN

John B